A P P E A L – Objet: Bakhriddin Khudoyenazarov

05.10.2012 № 36

A P P E A L

Objet:Bakhriddin Khudoyenazarov

Dos: № 385-08 C 06548.

21.11.2008

Тhe UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Highly esteemed High Commissioner:

We are appealing to you regarding Mr. Bakhriddin Khudoyenazarov, a refugee from Uzbekistan, who is currently in Turkey. On November 21, 2008, the Ankara office of theUNHCR registered Mr. Bakhriddin Khudoyenazarov as a refugee. He was interviewed two times: onDecember 4, 2008 and April 16, 2009. He received a call from the UNHCRoffice in Ankara on May 13, 2009, and was informed that he was about toobtain the refugee status and required him to provide a statement on hisillness. He has sent the statement immediately; however, no heard nothingback to date.

We are certain that Mr. High Commissioner, occupying such an esteemed andresponsible position, is well aware of a strong stream of refugeesoriginating from Uzbekistan alone, of all other former Soviet states,heading to Europe and other countries. This is no coincidence. Allow us tobriefly explain it.

A mass exodus from our country has taken place twice between 1917 and2012: following the establishment of the communist and Soviet rule inCentral Asia and after the Islam Karimov regime ascended to power afterthe collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. During the last 23 years, IslamKarimov has applied every effort to turn the country into a ‘police state’in the classical meaning of the term. It was for a reason that the UNCommittee Against Torture concluded two times—in May 2002 and November2007—that tortures are systematically and massively implemented inUzbekistan.

The UN special rapporteur against torture Theo Van Boven cameto a similar conclusion at the end of 2002, when he inspected penitentiaryfacilities in Uzbekistan. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands,of people fled the country fearing repression. One of the two authors, Mr.Talib Yakubov, provided alternative reports to the UN Committee AgainstTorture (Geneva, Switzerland, 1999) and the UN Committee for Human Rights(New York, USA, 2001), while the Uzbek government was presenting its ownreports.

In order to have a better understanding of the true scale of Uzbeklaw-enforcement agencies’ repressions against citizens based on politicaland religious motives, it is sufficient to look at the List of Arrestedand Convicted for Political and Religious Motives in Uzbekistan betweenDecember 1997 and December 2003. The list a) includes only a 6-yearperiod, b) the list exclude those repressed between 1990-1997 and2004-2012. Although the level of repression and numbers of those repressedwere not lower that those between 1997-2003:

Memorial, the Moscow-based human rights organization, is one of thelargest organizations monitoring persecution based on political andreligious motives in Central Asia. Memorial was involved in Mr. Bakhriddin Khudoyenazarov’scase. We are therefore including a Memorial-issued document in English andRussian that highlights the causes and motives of Mr. Bakhriddin Khudoyenazarov’s fleeing fromUzbekistan.

Over the course of the last several years, the Uzbek authorities havestepped up assaults and attacks on refugees to kill them. Assassins arehired for that purpose and sent to Russia, Europe and other countries.Allows us to provide the examples of one assassination and one attempt onlife:

the assassination of Fuad Rustamkhodjayev, who was shot near his homein Ivanovo, Russia, on September 24, 2011. He was one of the leaders ofthe democratic opposition of Uzbekistan.

there was an attempt to take Obidkhon Nazarov’s life on February 22,2012: a killer shot him near the driveway of the house he was living inStromsund, Sweden under political asylum obtained in 2005. He is still incoma in a hospital in this country.

The Uzbek authorities are exerting an enormous pressure on Mr. Bakhriddin Khudoyenazarov’srelatives, demanding he return and voluntarily turn himself in. During ofthe latest visits, a police officer told them: “We know his address and itdoes not take us much to send someone to Turkey to eliminate him.” This isa daily practice these agencies resort to aiming at scare the populationas much as possible.

Here is another example: in 1999, law-enforcing agencies searched thehouse of Tashkent-native Zafar Mavlyanov’s parents. Fearing an illegalarrest and unfair trial, Mr. Mavlyanov left for Holland. He obtained Dutchcitizenship in 2004. He married a Dutch woman and has 4 children. However,officers from the local prosecutor’s office visit his parents every weekdemanding they tell their son to return to country and appear before aprosecutor.

Luckily, the Turkish authorities are not considering deporting, or evenworse—extraditing, Mr. Bakhriddin Khudoyenazarov to Uzbekistan. But given the criminalactivities the Uzbek special services commit against their own citizenswho voice even minor criticism of incumbent authorities. It is thereforeimperative to remain alert given what police officers have done to hisrelatives.

Mr. High Commissioner!

Any form of expulsion of Mr. Bakhriddin Khudoyenazarov from Turkey to Uzbekistan is unequivocallytantamount to exposing him to an illegal arrest, violent tortures, anunfair trial and long years of imprisonment, maybe even death. We believethis cannot be permitted. We are strongly convinced that only you and yourorganization are capable of preventing a very highly probable tragedy frombefalling Mr. Bakhriddin Khudoyenazarov

We are earnestly asking you to intervene into the case of the refugee Bakhriddin Khudoyenazarov, in order to prevent a probably tragedy and expedite the process ofhis refugee status of one seeking political asylum in a third country.